Coward
by Zico
Summary: Snow gives Hope a pep talk


**A/N: **Yet another FF13 fanfiction. It has infected my mind. This will be my first time writing in Snow's POV. I hope I do well.

**Disclaimer: **If I did own Final Fantasy XIII it would be out already and Versus would be coming out on the 360. But it truly belongs to Squenix. Ho hum.

Anyway… Onward!!

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Lightning had been furious, and Snow, for once, couldn't blame her. He winced as he heard the pink haired warrior yelling in the clearing he had left both her and Vanille behind in. He could guess Vanille was desperately trying to calm Lightning down; she seemed to be the only one to be able to do so.

He stepped over the large roots that were tangled over the forest floor and thought back to the events that lead to him trudging through a dense forest on his own. So they had gotten word of some Cocoon soldiers being dispatched near a town not to far from Team Nora's hideout which led to Lightning, Vanille, Hope and himself to go and investigate.

Lightning had been skeptical about Hope tagging along. In truth Hope was as well but Snow had insisted and Vanille had backed him up. Other than Snow himself, it seemed only Lightning knew how much Hope hated Snow. Hope blamed Snow for his mother's death and therefore wanted to stay away from Team Nora's leader. Snow could take that. He was a man; he could take being hated a little even if it was over a misunderstanding.

What he couldn't take was Hope's cowardice.

The four had been progressing slowly through the forest when, predictably, they were attacked. The fiends were common around here, wolf like in shape and behavior. It would have been an easy win if it were not for the sheer number of them. Over the next ten minuets the group kept them at bay. Lightning and Snow attacked at close range, alternating between physical attacks and magic, while Vanille and Hope picked off the fiends furthest away, until it was just Vanille shooting.

From there things went down hill. Hope, thinking that they couldn't win, had run off and left Vanille to do all the work. The monster's increased in number and Lightning had to resort to using her trademark firaga area attack to wipe them out all at once, some thing she hadn't wanted to do because it consumed all her MP.

Lightning dug her gun blades tip into the ground and lent heavily on it as she caught her breath. Vanille coughed and waved her arms in front of her face to keep the smoke away as she made her way over to Lightning and Snow. Seeing Lightning's state, Vanille reached into her pack to find an Ether. Lightning pushed herself up and Snow grabbed onto her arm to steady her.

"You're exhausted, you shouldn't move" He advised. She looked up at him and quickly scanned the clearing before her gaze returned to Snow, anger flashing in her eyes.

"Where is he?" She growled "Where's Hope?"

Snow shook his head and looked over to Vanille, who looked lost for a moment and shrugged. She had no idea either.

"He can't have gone far" Snow muttered as he searched the surrounding tree line for any clue as to where Hope had run off too.

"He must have gone back the way we came" Lightning stated as she nodded curtly to Vanille as she handed her the Ether. "The path a head was blocked by those monsters."

Snow let go of Lightning's arm and let Vanille support her. "I'll go after him" He said as he walked back towards the path they had been following and ignored Lightning's angry protests which were drowned out by Vanille shoving the contents of a potion bottle into her mouth.

Snow wanted to at least spare Hope the torture of one of Lightning's lectures. She was a woman of little words but when she felt that she needed to talk there was no stopping her. Sure he'll have some stern words for the kid when he found him. He put the group in danger thanks to this stunt so he wasn't getting off lightly.

He wasn't being very thorough in his searching. He didn't think he needed to be, how hard can it be to find a boy with silver hair and wearing bright orange anyway?

About an hour later he changed his mind on that one. He groaned and leaned against a nearby tree, feeling very sorry for himself. Maybe he _should_ have let Lightning handle this one, or even Vanille since both were better at tracking than he was.

Shuffling nearby caught his attention and he raised his head to look in the direction the noise was coming from. Through a nearby bush he could see what looked like silver.

'Got ya' He thought as he grinned triumphantly and crept over to the bush. He peered over the top of the leaves to see Hope. The boy looked fine, no scratches or obvious injuries. Of course he ran out before he had time to get any. Snow hadn't been noticed. Despite his size he could be very quiet when he wanted to be though Lightning would never believe it.

He reached out one hand to grab Hope's shoulder and make himself known. The kid yelled and nearly jumped out of his skin if Snow hadn't been holding him down.

"So this is where you've been hiding?" Snow grinned down at him and Hope stared up at him, his expression unreadable for a moment before he finally settled for anger. He quickly brushed Snow's hand off his shoulder and pushed himself up.

"Just leave me alone!" He yelled as he turned his back on Snow and stormed away him. Snow frowned at this and followed after him.

"Calm down" He replied as he risked grabbing Hope's shoulder again to stop him from going any deeper into the forest. Snow didn't want to risk getting lost.

"What's wrong?" Snow asked and hoped that for once Hope would be co-operative enough to give him a straight answer and not clam up. Hope froze and shuffled nervously for a moment.

"Nothing's wrong" He replied finally and jerked his shoulder out of Snow's grip. Snow just replaced his hand and put his free hand on Hope's other shoulder. His grim was firm but not tight enough to be painful.

"That's a lie and we both know it" Snow answered "If nothing's wrong then why did you run away? You put the rest of us in danger".

Hope's hands curled into fists and he growled quietly in frustration. "If I tell you…" He looked over his shoulder at Snow as he spoke. "Will it get you to leave any quicker?"

Snow stayed quiet for a moment but mentally rolled his eyes. The kid always had to make things difficult for him. He supposed this wasn't going to get sorted any easier so he just nodded his head. Snow sighed heavily and turned his head back to look in front of him.

"I was scared alright?" Snow almost had to strain his hearing; Hope had spoken in something just above a whisper. "There, I said it" Hope added, louder this time, "Happy now?"

"You we're scared?" Snow repeated, "Why?" He was about to add on an explanation as to why he was confused when Hope pushed Snow's hands off him with surprising strength and spun round to face him.

"Why?" Hope growled and his eyes narrowed in annoyance. "There we're so many of those damn things. No way could we have won by just hacking away at them."

Snow blinked, moving back just a little as Hope shouted at him. He groaned and shook his head and waited for the boy to calm down. "That's not what I meant" Snow replied, a little bit of annoyance in his tone of voice. He gripped Hope's shoulders again and gave him a little shake.

"If we work as a team we can beat them" Snow stated and stared Hope in the eye. "You work together and you can overcome anything, you will always have people behind you to catch you if you fall and knowing that you have the courage to risk everything".

This was the type of lecture Snow gave, more of a pep talk. He watched as Hope's expression changed from one of anger to something more like understanding.

Snow took a deep breath and continued. "But you have to catch the others too. We wouldn't have let you died back there you know, I especially wouldn't have allowed it." He looked down at Hope and grinned "I'm the hero so I have to look after you and the others".

His playfulness obviously didn't rub off on Hope. The boy simply lowered his head. Snow could tell he was ashamed of his actions and that was good enough for him, no extra punishment necessary. He'd speak to Lightning when they regrouped about leaving the kid alone.

"Alright, we've kept the ladies waiting long enough don't you think" Snow grinned again and wrapped one arm round Hope's shoulders and gave him another light shake before guiding him back to where the path was. "Just try not to do it again though" Hope looked up at him with an expression that said 'or what?'

Snow laughed loudly and winked at him, "I'll let Lightning come after you next time" he replied. For Hope that was deterrent enough.

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**A/N: **Good lord I had so much writers block for this one. Do excuse the horrible grammar if there is any because I'm pretty tired right about now. I got this idea after reading on the FF wikia that Hope may run away from battles and that it's up to the player to train him to become brave, like a pokemon of sorts. This immediately gave me a plot bunny and this fic was born.

I dunno why but I think I might end up slashing Hope and Snow. I'm weird like that, don't worry.


End file.
